Baby with iPhone: Apple has to remove advertising poster after heavy criticism

A huge Apple advertising poster in Milan has sparked heated debate. The motif showed a toddler with a smartphone. Critics saw this as a trivialization of ‘digital babysitting’. The company reacted immediately.

Criticism of digital babysitting

Companies always try to attract attention with their advertising. They mock their competitors, but sometimes they also get in trouble, as was the case with Microsoft recently. The same thing has now more or less happened to Apple. The company removed a large advertising poster for the iPhone in Milan after massive complaints were made. The motif on the busy Via Melchiorre Gioia showed a toddler holding an iPhone smeared with porridge. The accompanying slogan was that everything was fine because it was an Apple device and nothing like that could harm it.

The campaign was originally intended to highlight the enormous robustness of the hardware. Apple has placed the durability of its devices at the center of its marketing for several generations. Other motifs in the current advertising strategy showed dogs carrying the phone in their mouths or use in heavy rain. However, the toddler motif sparked concern among some observers in Italy.

Intervention by the child protection authority

As 9to5Mac reported, the Italian child protection authority AGIA intervened in the case. The organization publicly complained that the huge poster normalized ‘electronic babysitting’. This refers to the controversial practice of quieting small children with digital screens.

The authority warned urgently that such behavior could lead to early digital addiction. There is also a risk that the psychological and cognitive development of adolescents will be negatively influenced by too many stimuli. The advertising campaign counteracts the years-long efforts of numerous educators and pediatricians who warn against careless media consumption. The discussion about screen time for young children has been intense in science for a long time. Experts usually recommend completely avoiding or severely restricting access to digital media in the first years of life. A poster on a busy street in Milan, which apparently shows exactly the opposite, therefore offered a wide target for child protection activists and parents’ associations.

Consequences for Apple

The AGIA did not just issue a complaint, but forwarded the case directly to the communications regulator AGCOM and the national competition authority. Although Apple did not officially comment on the incident, the company acted without delay. The controversial poster was taken down within a short time and replaced with another motif.

The new image now promotes the location function of iOS. The incident in Milan clearly shows how differently global advertising messages are perceived in a local context. While Apple wanted to emphasize the purely physical resistance to dirt and liquids, for the Italian critics the educational component was obviously in the foreground.